Chris Harrington teaches a safety class earlier this month at Pickens High School in South Carolina.

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Not long before Corey Murphy became principal of Beaufort High School in South Carolina in July, two students were killed and a third seriously injured in a car crash. Murphy decided it was time for an "intervention."

From that point on, students who wanted to be able to park their cars at the school would be required to take a driving safety course called Alive at 25, developed by the National Safety Council.

"Every day, I've got the largest group of at-risk drivers in this county in my parking lot," Murphy said. "I'd like to think that they've been taught at least once what to do and not do behind the wheel."

Beaufort High became one of 103 South Carolina schools to offer the course -- one of 25 new ones this year and one of 72 that require it for parking privileges, according to Brooke Russell, executive director of the state's chapter of the National Safety Council.

A growing number of other states offer it:

Nearly 2,000 students have taken the class in Oklahoma since 2008 and at least three high schools within the past year have started requiring it for parking permits, said Kellie Warrior, marketing and events manager for the Oklahoma Safety Council.

Meade County High in Brandenburg, Ky., required the course for parking last year but decided this year to offer a 50% discount on parking fees as an incentive for taking it instead, said David Daily, assistant principal.

Schools in Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina, Illinois and New York also post messages on their websites notifying students that they'll have to take the class to get a parking permit.

More than 60,000 students in South Carolina have gone through the 4½ hour program since February 2007, according Russell, and the number of highway deaths of drivers in the 15-24 age group has fallen from 278 to 168 by 2011, she said. Not all of that decline can be attributed to Alive at 25. The overall highway death rate fell 23% during the same period, as the state stepped up enforcement of seatbelt, DUI and other laws, Russell said.

Lt. Chris Harrington of the Clemson University Police Department begins his Alive at 25 classes at Pickens (S.C.) High School by showing a video about a teenage girl from the Columbia area who was killed trying to outrun a train at a railroad crossing.

"The whole purpose is to show that every decision we make while we're driving a car affects our lives and the lives of other people," he said.

Braden Tarlton, 16, a Pickens High junior in the class, was skeptical going into the class whether he'd learn anything he hadn't heard before. Afterward, he said it opened his eyes to potential dangers.

"The videos we watched were pretty graphic," he said. "They were pretty sad, too."

Barnett also reports for The Greenville (S.C.) News

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